Rex Ryan was down in the post-touchdown scrum, hip checking and high-fiving like he’d been the lead blocker for Joe McKnight himself on the 100-yard, third-quarter kickoff return.

He was a man who hadn’t enjoyed himself in quite some time, having watched the past two weeks as the team’s pillars — Santonio Holmes and Darrelle Revis — were lost for the season. But for a moment Ryan was a leader who was going hoarse trying to rally a team from a season slipping away.

They were down only six then, with 4:38 left in the third against the mighty Houston Texans and feeling brave.

But then a surprise onside kick followed that slipped through the hands of Jets wide receiver Chaz Schilens. Houston recovered, their sideline erupted, and the Texans zipped down the field for a quick field goal. Ryan’s brief euphoria came crashing down. The momentum they’d worked for was gone.

“It was a great call,” Schilens said. “If I caught it we would have won the game. It was a huge let down on my part.”

In front of a spotty Monday Night crowd at MetLife Stadium, the Jets fell for the second straight week in a 23-17 loss to the 5-0 Texans after playing them tight all evening. Mark Sanchez finished 14-of-31 for 230 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. The run game didn’t help much more, adding just 69 yards on the ground.

The Jets (2-3) would climb back within six and have a chance to win the game on a final drive that began with 3:28 remaining on their 16-yard line. What began with promise — an 8-yard run by Bilal Powell and an 10-yard catch by Jason Hill — soon crumbled. Sanchez was sacked by Brice McCain for a loss of eight and then saw a tipped pass intercepted on the next play for the final blow.

Jeff Cumberland, the intended target, said he should have caught the ball.

“The thing that’s upsetting, I think, is that we helped (the Texans),” Ryan said. “Clearly that’s a good football team. They don’t need any help and that’s the thing that we’re kicking ourselves for a little bit.”

Ryan defended his use of the onside kick just like he did the risky punt they faked in their own territory with the score still tied in the first quarter, the long pass Tim Tebow threw in his first snap and the use of Antonio Cromartie at wide receiver.

He only second-guessed his use of timeouts, which were mostly the cause of Clyde Gates’ shoulder injury and the scrambling of different personnel groupings to follow. Players were constantly scrambling onto the field only to scurry off afterward.

“I came to win,” Ryan said. “I think when you ask your players to leave it out there and do whatever it takes to win, that’s me included.”

The Jets stuck around despite a mix of good and bad. The defense stepped up, like the Cromartie interception on a pass intended for Andre Johnson that set up their first score. Then they faltered, like on the Texans’ first touchdown, when a play-action fake sucked the entire unit to one side of the field as Owen Daniels snuck into the end zone unguarded, beating Cromartie for the score by a few yards.

There were big passing plays — five of 24 yards or more — and the big interceptions on tipped balls that erased them all away.

“The objective is to win, so of course everyone is upset,” Sanchez said. “But you’ve got to give yourself a chance to win and that’s what we did tonight.”

The loss leaves the team in a limbo of sorts, halfway between the satisfaction of a more competitive outing than last week’s 34-0 drubbing at the hands of the 49ers, and the sting of a second straight defeat.

Cromartie and Schilens said there are things to build on and that perhaps next week will be better.

And yet, there is also the feeling that they could have held on to that sweet feeling as Ryan jumped into a bouncing sea of Jets and the lead was in their sight.

“It goes down as a loss,” guard Brandon Moore said. “They don’t have a solace column.”